Chennai

Notes from Chennai (formerly called Madras)

India note # 1: India loves bureaucracy. As a former British colony, India fell in love with forms and stamps and approval letters and multiple documents, and layers and layers of supervision. Even after completing an exhausting application for visas last summer before the cruise even started, four of the staterooms onboard failed to receive an e-landing card from India immigration. Ours was one of the four. So we were told that we would simply have our visas hand-processed.

Simple.

At immigration station number 1, the uniformed immigration official didn’t know what to do with us, so he called his boss. The boss didn’t know what to do with us, so he called his boss. This boss couldn’t get his scanner to work and Glenda was kind enough to start trying to tell him what he needed to do to fix it. I don’t think he spoke English, but that didn’t stop Glenda. She kept at it.

I avoided the temptation to ask her politely to shut up, because even if the boss had been able to get his scanner to work, it would not do us any good. The problem was that we did not have a landing card that could be scanned—even if equipment were working properly.

I whispered, or I tried to whisper, “Glenda, for God’s sake, don’t start trying to play Nancy Drew right now!” He looked at Glenda funny, then asked me, “Who is Nancy Drew? That is not the name on this visa!” He finally stamped our document, signed it and sent us to the next station, telling us that there would be no problem.

Yeah. Right.

“Move here. No, here. Stand in line here. Now stop. Wait here. Now move over there. Wait. Now get in this line.” This whole process, complete with multiple bosses, was repeated 3 more times. Four times in all. The last boss was a big, heavy guy with a big black mustache, a sharp looking military uniform and 3 stars on his shoulder boards. I figured he must be a Lieutenant General. At some point in the process, it got funny. Glenda started laughing—not just tittering, but guffawing out loud. Hooting. I shushed her, and she laughed louder. I turned red and tried desperately to get her quiet, as visions of a hot, humid Indian prison danced in my head. She laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes. People were looking at us. I was dripping sweat and felt like I was about to die until I glanced up and saw that Lieutenant General Moustache was getting tickled too. I think they all thought that Glenda had, well, a problem. He stamped our landing cards, patted me on the shoulder while shaking his head, and we were on our way.

The good news is that we get to do this 3 more times, once in Cochin, once in Goa, and once in Mumbai, because we still don’t have the right landing card.

India note # 2: Cows are cool. If you die and come back as a cow in India, you wander around in people’s yards and the folks pat you on the rump and give you stuff to eat. They won’t kill you or eat you because you’re sacred. Altogether, not a bad deal. Just don’t come back as a cow in America. Cows don’t have as strong a labor union there.

India note # 3: (Church wonk warning): St. Thomas is here. One of the main reasons I wanted to come to India was that I hoped to see some evidence of the Apostle Thomas (remember “doubting Thomas”?). I have known since seminary of a very strong oral tradition linking St. Thomas with India and the so-called Mar Thoma Church. The tradition holds that he arrived here in 52 AD and brought Christianity to India. I had hoped to see some traces of Thomas, but didn’t really expect to find any. Certainly Thomas was not high on the hit parade of any of my shipmates. However, five minutes after our bus left the port and entered downtown Chennai, we passed a big, white Catholic cathedral. Our guide pointed it out and said that it contains the grave of the Apostle Thomas. Bingo. For me, everything else we do in India is frosting on the cake. For me Thomas was the cake.

India Note # 4: There is some really old stuff here. We drove to the seaside town of Mahabalipuram to see not just one, but a collection of Hindu temples that go back to the sixth century AD. This is genuinely old stuff—some of the oldest Hindu iconography in existence. We actually walked inside the Holy of Holies of the so-called Shore temple. Though the temple has been deconsecrated, I think there are still some venerable old spirits who call this place home. Oh yes, it just happens to be located on the seaside site of a first century port which appears on some old Roman maps.

India note # 5: You gotta honk your horn constantly when you drive because there are no traffic lights. By the way, they drive on the wrong side of the road here. And there are lots of scooters carrying 3 or 4 people. But it’s cool. It works.

India note # 6: (For adults only) Hawkers are very persistent. As you walk from the bus to—anywhere—some very nice, wonderful, but very poor people will walk alongside you, trying to sell you little statues of Buddha or Krishna, little necklaces or drawings or trinkets. They will always say that they sculpted or painted or wove the object themselves. Maybe they did, but I doubt it. One huckster of limited English skills, approached Glenda with a set of heavy cardboard circles, each beautifully painted and lacquered. If you folded the top down each showed a lovely picture of a different bird or animal. If you folded the bottom up, it showed one of the 245 sexual positions of the Kamasutra, some of which could be performed only by a contortionist. Glenda wasn’t sure that the salesman understood her English, but she looked him in the eye, put her hand on his shoulder and said in her sweetest Southern drawl, “Honey, I’m 66 years old, have a hip replacement and arthritis. Now, really, what do you think I’m going to do with this?”

India note # 7: The people here are really nice. Over 90% are Hindus, which means that they are relaxed, non-violent vegetarians. Well, they are relaxed and non-violent once they stop driving and honking their horns. They smile at you, and they wave at your bus as you pass. Even the kids. Yeah, the beggars and the hawkers can be a bit aggressive, but they’re just trying to make a living too. I saw some young men at the temple. They saw my camera and I saw theirs, so we just smiled, then took each other’s photos, then laughed and waved as we parted. In spite of all the crowding and poverty, I think I like this place. It’s certainly not America, but for the people here it all somehow works.Read more